49 Teams Enter International Gateway Arch Design Competition

ST. LOUIS, Mo. – Contest organizers announced recently they have received portfolios from 49 teams now vying for a chance to invigorate the park and city areas surrounding one of the world’s most recognized monuments, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. Lead designers from across the United States and from seven other countries have submitted portfolios.

The CityArchRiver 2015 Foundation made the announcement following the Jan. 28 deadline for competitors to identify a lead designer and submit a team portfolio for the competition, “Framing a Modern Masterpiece: The City + The Arch + The River 2015.”

Next week, the competition jury will gather for the first time in St. Louis to review the portfolios. An announcement of portfolio review results, including an invitation to eight to 10 entrants to assemble complete teams for the next stage of competition, is expected Feb. 10. The competition, which was launched Dec. 8, 2009, will have three stages in all.

A networking event will take place Feb. 18, 2010, at the Old Courthouse in St. Louis. (Note: This is an earlier date than listed previously). Local contractors, minority, disadvantaged, and women-owned businesses, and others will be invited to the event to meet with short-listed design teams to discuss the chance of partnering on the project.

Upcoming public events include a ‘meet the designers night’ in late April and a public exhibition of the designs this summer.

“I look forward to gathering with the jury next week to start its critical work on this competition,” said Donald Stastny, chief executive officer of StastnyBrun Architects in Portland, Ore. and manager of the competition. “We’re pleased by the level of interest we’ve received from very talented individuals and firms.”

“We anticipated great interest in this competition and we were right,” said Walter Metcalfe, a member of the competition’s governance group. “The truly global nature of this competition is testament to Saarinen’s masterpiece, the Mississippi River, St. Louis, and the opportunity to weave it all together.”

“Great design minds throughout the world were challenged to share their vision and imagination with us and they are willing to do so,” said Metcalfe. “I’m already looking forward to the ribbon cutting on October 28, 2015 – the 50th anniversary of the completion of the Arch.”

Teams selected during the competition will develop designs that create an iconic setting for the international icon, the Gateway Arch, honoring its immediate surroundings and weaving connections and transitions from the city and the Arch grounds to the Mississippi River, including the east bank in Illinois.

Approximately 100 architects, designers, community leaders, media representatives and members of the public attended the competition’s pre-submittal meeting Jan. 13, which included a briefing and tour of the site.

The new design is called for in the National Park Service’s General Management Plan, which was developed with extensive public input over an 18-month period and approved Nov.23, 2009.

The competition is governed by the CityArchRiver 2015 Foundation, which includes Metcalfe, as well as Park Superintendent Tom Bradley, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, community leaders from Missouri and Illinois, academics, architects, and national park advocates.

Financial contributions to the CityArchRiver 2015 Foundation are being handled by the Greater St. Louis Community Foundation, a public charity with more than $140 million in charitable assets and representing more than 350 individual funds.

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